Jay Harvey Upstage

Round-number anniversaries decorated the pre-season concert of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival Sunday afternoon. The festival's 60th season counted it as an appetizer, and  Mark Cudek was marking his 20th anniversary as artistic director. But wait — that's not all, as the shopworn commercials say. The concert celebrated a half-century since Cudek made his professional debut "to showcase my insecurities," as he modestly told the audience. Mark Cittern had lots to celebrate Sunday. The Basile Opera Center attracted a capacity audience to its resonant space for Mark Cudek and Friends, a rubric that embraced the participation of soprano Mara Jaffee, baritone Michael Manganiello, and lutenist William Simms. The concert's tantalizing title and subtitle cast a wide net over the carefully cultivated repertoire: "Pastime With Good Company: Politics, Substance Abuse, and Improvisation in 17th-century England, France, and Italy." The program's breadth an...

  It's customary that symphony programs will be crowned by a work with a flashy, loud, or at least quite assertive ending, but this weekend's Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra evenings (wrapping up with today's 5:30 concert) come to rest amid phrases that subside at the en d. Moods of calm and hope prevail in two works composed amid the turmoil of World War II: Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring" and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony. Plus, the new work, generated amid the unrest of our current political era, wears its optimism unmistakably. Joan Tower, the composer of "Love Returns," a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, was on hand to lend her radiant charm to the ovation on the work's behalf. She justly praised the ISO's performance, as well as that of Steven Banks, the soloist, and guest conductor Robert Spano.  Joan Tower basked in the ISO presentation of "Love Returns."  With luck, she becomes a nonagenarian two yea...

In recent releases linked to the consequential sleuthing of Zev Feldman, a fuller picture of pianist Kenny Barron,  often in collaborative roles, has emerged. He is accountable for many of the successful aspects of Yusef Lateef's "Alight Upon the Lake" (Resonance) part of a vast trove of recordings made at Chicago's Jazz Showcase and unearthed by Feldman. The new "Live in Brecon: So Many Lovely Things" ( Elemental Music)  finds him in charge at the high noon of his career, heading a trio before a receptive audience in Brecon, Wales, in August 1995. His simpatico trio mates are two stars of their instruments who have since passed away: bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Ben Riley .  The two-disc set, recorded with revealing detail and care, shows off Kenny Barron: Mastery in a lovely setting the trio in a wealth of repertoire drawn mostly from standards freshly interpreted, plus a few originals and three jazz chestnuts by Freddie Hubbard and Thelonious Monk....

Ex-Marine's impulsive act arouses silhouettes. Two recent news events confirm the timeliness of a documentary-style new production by American Lives Theatre: Barney Frank died the other day, remembered mainly for his witty, progressive service in the U.S. Senate and his stature as the first openly gay national political figure. The other current event is among the Trump-initiated proposals for physical changes to Washington, D.C., a triumphal arch near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, a gesture of vaunting personal glory from a noted disparager of military sacrifice. Andrew Kramer's "Arlington, or Your Forgotten American Hero" opened Thursday in spectacular but far from superficial fashion in the Russell Theatre, the main stage at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. The story is steeped in the irony of American heroism, distorted by political agendas, bias, and cultural fashion. Chris Saunders' direction allows the cast to probe the wide range of beha...

  Mozart death mask, 1791 A nobleman's vanity generated the mystery surrounding Mozart's Requiem from its origins in the final, frantic phase of Wolfgang Mozart's career. The Austrian master scrambled to complete promised works and was bedeviled by health problms that were to kill him on December 5, 1791. The scholarly consensus is that an attack of acute rheumatic fever caused his premature death.  The commission to set the Latin Mass for the Dead was attended with secrecy because of an aristocrat's habit of presenting new music in his court as if he had written it. The "ghostwriting" assignment came to be associated with Mozart's declining health and the composer's unfounded suspicion that he was being poisoned.  Such a mixture of fact and fancy shadowed his final weeks and eventually led posthumously to a hit play and movie called "Amadeus," linking  Antonio Salieri to his artistic superior's demise in his mid-30s out of the court comp...

Derrick Gardner's sidelong glance There is a cornucopia of legacy for capable admirers to contribute to a musical celebration of Miles Davis, so my report on the first set of a May 15 tribute is bound to be inadequate. Just over an hour of music the immortal trumpeter-bandleader (1926-1991) made famous offers the merest sampling of his noteworthy achievements. Of course, how can you represent the lengthy discography, often gathered in multi-disc packages during the "electric phase" of his career, starting with the landmark "Bitches Brew"? Two sets might have given this account more balance, so it could be argued I should have stayed till the bar closed at the Jazz Kitchen and two trumpeters, two drummers, a saxophonist, a pianist, and a bassist had left the stage. There were some puzzles in the often excellent set. The climax of the performance was announced as "John McLaughlin," a Davis original from the "Bitches Brew" era. But unless I ha...